Bank of American Fork v. Jinyang Shen
Claim Number: FA0605000699645
PARTIES
Complainant is Bank of American Fork (“Complainant”), represented by Bradley E. Morris, of Callister Nebeker & McCullough, 10 East South Temple, Suite 900, Salt Lake City, UT 84133. Respondent is Jinyang Shen (“Respondent”), 355 Ellwood Beach Dr. Apt 33, Goleta, CA 93117.
REGISTRAR AND DISPUTED DOMAIN NAME
The domain name at issue is <bankofamericanfork.com>,
registered with Desert Devil, Inc.
PANEL
The undersigned certifies that he or she has acted independently and
impartially and to the best of his or her knowledge has no known conflict in
serving as Panelist in this proceeding.
Michael Albert as Panelist.
PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Complainant submitted a Complaint to the National Arbitration Forum
electronically on May 2, 2006; the National Arbitration Forum received a hard
copy of the Complaint on May 5, 2006.
On May 22, 2006, Desert Devil, Inc. confirmed by e-mail to the National
Arbitration Forum that the <bankofamericanfork.com>
domain name is registered with Desert Devil, Inc. and that the Respondent is
the current registrant of the name. Desert
Devil, Inc. has verified that Respondent is bound by the Desert Devil, Inc.
registration agreement and has thereby agreed to resolve domain-name disputes
brought by third parties in accordance with ICANN’s Uniform Domain Name Dispute
Resolution Policy (the “Policy”).
On May 31, 2006, a Notification of Complaint and Commencement of
Administrative Proceeding (the “Commencement Notification”), setting a deadline
of June 20, 2006 by which Respondent could file a Response to the Complaint,
was transmitted to Respondent via e-mail, post and fax, to all entities and
persons listed on Respondent’s registration as technical, administrative and
billing contacts, and to postmaster@bankofamericanfork.com by e-mail.
A timely Response was received and determined to be complete on June
19, 2006.
On June 27, 2006, pursuant to Complainant’s
request to have the dispute decided by a single-member Panel, the National
Arbitration Forum appointed Michael Albert as Panelist.
RELIEF SOUGHT
Complainant requests that the domain name be transferred from
Respondent to Complainant.
PARTIES’ CONTENTIONS
A. Complainant asserts as follows:
The Domain Name Is Identical
To Complainant’s Mark
·
Complainant has
been offering banking and financial services in the town of American Fork, Utah
County, Utah under the service mark BANK OF AMERICAN FORK for more than
forty-five years, since at least as early as 1960.
·
Complainant’s
service mark is well known in the state of Utah and, particularly, in Utah
County, where Complainant is headquartered.
·
Complainant has
registered its BANK OF AMERICAN FORK service mark with the State of Utah’s
Department of Commerce (File No. 6,141,894 filed February 23, 2006).
·
The Domain Name
is identical to Complainant’s BANK OF AMERICAN FORK service mark because it
incorporates the BANK OF AMERICAN FORK mark in its entirety and adds only
“.com.”
Respondent
Has No Rights Or Legitimate Interests In The Domain Name
·
Respondent is
not offering bona fide goods or
services under the Domain Name.
·
For at least
two years, Respondent used the Domain Name to misdirect Complainant’s customers
and potential customers to Respondent’s website for commercial gain.
·
Presently,
Respondent does not maintain a website at the Domain Name.
·
Respondent is
not licensed by Complainant to use the BANK OF AMERICAN FORK mark.
·
Complainant’s
prior rights in the Domain Name precede Respondent’s registration of the Domain
Name, which occurred in 2004.
·
Respondent is
not known by the BANK OF AMERICAN FORK mark.
The
Domain Name Was Registered in Bad Faith
·
The Domain Name
has been used exclusively as an advertising portal that features links to third
party websites.
·
Respondent
profited from its use of the Domain Name by charging “click-through” or
“referral fees” for hosting the links to third party websites from the Domain
Name website.
·
Respondent
continues to hold the registration of the Domain Name without posting a website
at the Domain Name.
·
Respondent has
actual knowledge of Complainant’s use of the BANK OF AMERICAN FORK service
mark.
·
Respondent
intentionally chose the Domain Name to divert Complainant’s customers and
potential customers based upon Respondent’s previous use of “Utah County” and
“American Fork Attractions” as search categories on the home page of the Domain
Name website.
·
Users clicking
on the search categories of “Utah County” and “American Fork Attractions” were
provided with links to the commercial websites of third parties.
·
Consumers
looking for Complainant’s website were directed to Respondent’s website, and
misled into believing that the Domain Name website linked to websites owned,
sponsored, or endorsed by Complainant.
·
Complainant
personally contacted the Previous Registrant in December 2004 to attempt to
purchase the Domain Name and explained Complainant’s use of the mark to the
Previous Registrant at that time.
·
Complainant was
contacted by Respondent on May 23, 2006 with an offer to sell the Domain Name
to Complainant.
B. Respondent asserts as follows:
Identical Or Confusingly
Similar
·
The Domain Name
is identical to a mark in which Complainant has rights.
Respondent
Should Be Considered To Have Rights And Legitimate Interests In the Domain Name
·
Respondent
registered the Domain Name for a website through which it plans to provide
American dining fork information and a gallery for kitchen utensil collectors.
·
The Domain Name
was chosen for its generic name meaning of “American fork collection” or
“American fork resources.”
·
Respondent
registered the Domain Name for the first time on May 18, 2006.
·
Respondent
first received notice of this dispute on May 23, 2006.
·
The Domain Name
is temporarily directed to a blank page while the website is under development.
·
Respondent has
never used the domain name to misdirect Complainant’s customers and potential
customers to Respondent’s website for commercial gain because it has not posted
a website at the Domain Name and the alleged activities occurred prior to the
Respondent’s registration of the Domain Name.
·
Because notice
of this dispute was received only five days after registering the Domain Name,
Respondent was unable to develop a website for the Domain Name.
·
The Previous
Registrant, not the Respondent, is responsible for the alleged conduct related
to the Domain Name that occurred before May 18, 2006.
The
Domain Name Should Not Be Considered As Having Been Registered and Used In Bad Faith
·
Respondent
lives in California and has never visited Utah.
·
At the time of
its registration of the Domain Name, Respondent had no knowledge of
Complainant’s business or service mark.
·
Respondent did
not register the Domain Name for the purpose of selling it to the Complainant
or to any other party.
·
Respondent has
never contacted Complainant or any other party to offer the domain name for
sale.
·
Respondent has
never used the Domain Name to misdirect Complainant’s customers and potential
customers to Respondent’s website for commercial gain and the alleged
misdirection of Internet users was the work of the Previous Registrant, not
Respondent.
FINDINGS
At the time that the Original Complaint was
filed, the WHOIS information for the <bankofamericanfork.com>
domain name was protected by a privacy shield.
Sometime on or about May 18, 2006, the privacy shield was lifted, and
the WHOIS information now shows Respondent as the Current Registrant and lists
the registration date as May 18, 2006.
Respondent does not explain the circumstances under which it purportedly
acquired the Domain Name, such as by explaining who the Previous Registrant of
the Domain Name was or how it acquired the Domain Name from the Previous
Registrant after the Original Complaint had been filed. The Panel finds Respondent’s claims
implausible and rejects Respondent’s argument that it is not responsible for
activities that occurred before May 18, 2006.
The Panel finds all three requirements under
Policy ¶ 4(a) satisfied. Respondent
admits, and the Panel finds, that the Domain Name is identical to a mark in
which the Complainant has rights.
Furthermore, the Panel finds that the Respondent has no rights or
legitimate interests in the Domain Name and that the Respondent registered and
is using the Domain Name in bad faith.
DISCUSSION
Paragraph 15(a) of the Rules for Uniform Domain
Name Dispute Resolution Policy (the “Rules”) instructs this Panel to “decide a
complaint on the basis of the statements and documents submitted in accordance
with the Policy, these Rules and any rules and principles of law that it deems
applicable.”
Paragraph 4(a) of the Policy requires that the Complainant must prove
each of the following three elements to obtain an order that a domain name
should be cancelled or transferred:
(1)
the domain name
registered by the Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark
or service mark in which the Complainant has rights;
(2)
the Respondent
has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
(3)
the domain name
has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
WHOIS Privacy Shield Lifted
Respondent
contends that it first registered the Domain Name on May 18, 2006 and that a
substantial portion of the Complaint is inapplicable to it because the alleged
activities occurred before it registered the Domain Name. The Panel finds that the highly suspicious
circumstances under which Respondent claims to have registered the Domain Name
suggest that Respondent either was the Previous Registrant of the Domain Name,
was a related party, or registered the Domain Name to shield the Previous
Registrant from liability for its activities that occurred prior to May 18,
2006.
When the
Original Complaint was filed, the Previous Registrant’s WHOIS Information was
privacy protected, listing the Previous Registrant’s address as the Vancouver,
British Columbia address of Nameview, Inc., the Registrar used by the Previous
Registrant. On or about May 18, 2006,
the privacy shield was lifted, and Complainant submitted an Amended Complaint
on May 30, 2006 listing Respondent as the Current Registrant, using Desert
Devil, Inc. as the Current Registrar of the Domain Name.
Respondent
registered the Domain Name two weeks after the National Arbitration Forum
received the Original Complaint and offers no explanation as to how it acquired
the Domain Name during the time between when the Original and Amended
Complaints were received. Additionally,
Respondent registered the Domain Name on May 18, 2006, very close to the time
that the National Arbitration Forum had requested that a lock be placed on the
Domain Name. Indeed, on May 19, 2006,
the National Arbitration Forum contacted the Current Registrar of the Domain
Name to give notice of the Original Complaint and request that a lock be placed
on the Domain Name until the conclusion of this proceeding. The Current Registrar replied to this
request on May 22, 2006 indicating that a lock had been placed on the Domain
Name. The Respondent fails to explain
the circumstances under which it acquired the Domain Name from the previous
owner (if any), and suggests to the Panel that the most plausible explanation
is that Respondent is either the Previous Registrant of the Domain Name whose
contact information was previously concealed by Nameview’s privacy shield or
that Respondent acted in concert with the Previous Registrant in an effort
shield itself from responsibility for the acts of the Previous Registrant. Either way, the Panel finds it proper to
consider the activities alleged in the Complaint occurring before May 18, 2006
in resolving this matter.
Allowing a
party to transfer a Domain Name after a complaint has been filed but before the
registrar has had the opportunity to comply with its obligation to place a lock
on the Domain Name would allow offending registrants to game the system and
avoid accountability for their actions by hiding behind aliases or colluding
third parties. Indeed, it is exactly
this sort of activity that Policy ¶ 8 is designed to prevent.
Respondent does not challenge Complainant’s
rights in the BANK OF AMERICAN FORK service mark nor does it dispute the
similarity between the Domain Name and the BANK OF AMERICAN FORK mark. Indeed, Respondent admits that “the Domain
Name is identical to a mark in which Complainant has rights.” Resp. at 2.
The Panel concurs and finds that the Domain Name is confusingly similar
to Complainant’s service mark.
Respondent has no rights or legitimate
interests in the Domain Name.
Respondent offers no bona fide
goods or services under the Domain Name, presently posts no website at the
Domain Name, and provides only implausible and uncorroborated allegations of an
intent to use the Domain Name in the future.
The Complainant bears the initial burden of making a prima facie case
that the respondent lacks rights and legitimate interests in the Domain
Name. Upon the Complainant’s showing of
a prima facie case, the burden shifts
to the Respondent to show that it does have rights or legitimate interests in
the disputed Domain Name. See Do The
Hustle, LLC v. Tropic Web, D2000-0624 (WIPO Aug. 21, 2000) (holding that
where the complainant has asserted that the respondent has no rights or
legitimate interests with respect to the domain name, it is incumbent upon the
respondent to come forward with concrete evidence rebutting this assertion
because this information is “uniquely within the knowledge and control of the
respondent”); see also G.D. Searle v. Martin Mktg., FA 118277 (Nat. Arb.
Forum Oct. 1, 2002) (“Because Complainant’s Submission constitutes a prima
facie case under the Policy, the burden effectively shifts to
Respondent. Respondent’s failure to
respond means that Respondent has not presented any circumstances that would
promote its rights or legitimate interests in the subject domain name under
Policy ¶ 4(a)(ii)”).
Complainant has met its initial burden of
demonstrating that Respondent has no rights or legitimate interest in the
Domain Name. First, Complainant asserts
that Respondent has not previously and is not presently offering bona fide goods or services under the
Domain Name. Instead, Respondent used
the Domain Name in the past to misdirect Complainant’s customers and potential
customers by providing links to third party websites for commercial gain. Complainant provides a printout of
Respondent’s web page in its Annex No. 3 showing that Respondent’s website, as
accessed on April 11, 2006, provided links to websites related to “Utah
Attractions,” “Utah County,” “American Fork Travel,” travel and vacation
information, and sites relating to kitchenware. The use of a domain name to redirect Internet users to websites
unrelated to a complainant’s mark is not a bona
fide use. See WeddingChannel.com Inc. v. Vasiliev, FA 156716 (Nat. Arb. Forum
June 12, 2003) (finding that the respondent’s use of the disputed domain name
to redirect Internet users to websites unrelated to the complainant’s mark,
websites for which the respondent presumably receives a referral fee for each
misdirected Internet user, was not a bona
fide offering of goods or services as contemplated by the Policy); see
also LowerMyBills, Inc. v. Tyson
Rukash, FA 592566 (Nat. Arb. Forum Dec. 27, 2005) (finding that
respondent’s use of the disputed domain name to redirect Internet users to a
search engine web site is not a use in connection with a bona fide offering of goods or services or a legitimate
noncommercial or fair use); see also
Florists’ Transworld Delivery v.
Seocho, FA 104976 (Nat. Arb. Forum Mar. 25, 2002) (“Respondent’s use of the
website merely as a link to the website of another business is not a bona fide offering of goods pursuant to
Policy ¶ 4(c)(i)”). Because Complainant
is involved in the financial services industry, web sites containing travel
information for the American Fork area or information regarding kitchen
utensils are unrelated to Complainant’s mark and cannot be characterized as a
fair or nominative use of the mark.
Respondent presumably received click-through fees for posting these
links on its website, thereby commercially benefiting from misdirecting
Internet users. Thus, Respondent’s past
use of the Domain Name to redirect Internet users to third party websites for
commercial gain is not a legitimate use of the Domain Name.
Respondent’s present use of the Domain Name
to display a blank page also does not establish rights or legitimate
interests. Failure to maintain a
website at the Domain Name suggests that the respondent has no rights or
legitimate interests in the Domain Name.
See Nike, Inc. v. Crystal Int’l,
D2001-0102 (WIPO Mar. 9, 2001) (finding no rights or legitimate interests where
the respondent made no use of the infringing domain names); see also Americor Mortgage, Inc. v. Bowman, FA
93548 (Nat. Arb. Forum Apr. 22, 2002).
Complainant demonstrates in its Annex No. 4 that since at least May 1,
2006, the Domain Name has been used to display a blank page. Respondent counters that the Domain Name has
only been under its control since May 18, 2006 and that it had no time to
develop a web page before it was notified of this proceeding. The Panel has already rejected Respondent’s
argument that it is not responsible for acts preceding May 18, 2006. Therefore, non-use should be measured from
May 1, 2006 because it was since at least that date that Respondent failed to
post a website.
Respondent’s claim that it plans to use the
Domain Name to start an informational website on American dining forks and a
gallery for kitchen utensil collectors, while creative, is unconvincing. Beyond Respondent’s bald assertion that it intends
to use the Domain Name for this purpose, Respondent has produced no evidence
demonstrating that it actually has plans to launch such a website, such as a
business model for the website or evidence indicating a particular interest in
American flatware. If the Domain Name
consisted merely of a generic term relating to forks, Respondent might have
lucked into a somewhat more plausible excuse.
But it fails to explain the presence of the reference to a “bank” in the
Domain Name, which, so far as the Panel can tell, has nothing to do with forks,
and everything to do with the provision of banking services in the town of
American Fork, Utah. Respondent’s justification
is spurious. Cf. Shields v. Zuccarini, 89 F. Supp. 2d 634, 640 (E.D. Pa. 2000), aff’d, 254 F.3d 476 (3d Cir. 2001) (rejecting registrant’s alleged
purpose in providing information on his website as a “spurious explanation
cooked up purely for this suit”).
Accordingly, the Panel finds Respondent’s supposed plans to create a
website with information about American dining forks insufficient to establish
rights or legitimate interests in the Domain Name.
Furthermore,
Respondent’s assertion that <bankofamericanfork.com> is a generic
name meaning “American fork collection” or “American fork resources” is without
merit. Such an understanding requires a
highly distorted reading of the Domain Name.
Cf. Coming Attractions, Ltd. v.
Comingattractions.com, FA 94341 (Nat. Arb. Forum May 11, 2000) (finding
that the respondent had the right to register the subject domain name, <comingattractions.com>, based upon the
generic usage of the term “coming
attractions”). Whereas the domain name
in Coming Attractions had a common
meaning and a common usage, the Domain Name in dispute does not have any
analogous common or generic meaning.
Accordingly, the Panel finds Respondent’s arguments relating to the
generic nature of the Domain Name unpersuasive.
In sum, Respondent has no rights or
legitimate interests in registering and using the Domain Name because
Complainant has established that Respondent offers no bona fide goods or services through the Domain Name and Respondent
is unable to rebut these claims with a plausible showing of a plan to make a
legitimate use of the Domain Name.
Respondent has registered and is using the
Domain Name in bad faith. Numerous
panels have found that offers to sell the disputed domain name constitute
evidence of bad faith registration and use under Policy ¶ 4(b)(i). Indeed, even general offers to sell where no
certain price is demanded provide evidence of bad faith. See,
e.g., Bank of Am. Corp. v. Nw. Free
Cmty. Access, FA 180704 (Nat. Arb. Forum Sept. 30, 2003) (“Respondent’s
general offer of the disputed domain name registration for sale establishes
that the domain name was registered in bad faith under Policy ¶ 4(b)(i).”); see also Am. Anti-Vivisection Soc’y v. “Infra dot Net” Web Serv., FA 95685
(Nat. Arb. Forum Nov. 6, 2000) (finding that “general offers to sell the domain
name, even if no certain price is demanded, are evidence of bad faith”). Complainant alleges that Respondent
contacted it on May 23, 2006 with an offer to sell the Domain Name. Complainant does not specify whether
Respondent named a particular price at that time, and further details of this
encounter are lacking. Respondent
contends that it never contacted Complainant and thus has never offered to sell
the Domain Name to Complainant.
Because the parties’ contentions directly
contradict each other regarding whether an offer to sell the Domain Name was
made, the Panel must assess the credibility of the parties in deciding the
veracity of these assertions. Whereas
Complainant has given no indications that the information it provided is
incorrect, Respondent’s credibility has come into serious question from
evaluating other aspects of this dispute.
First, Respondent registered the Domain Name after Complainant submitted
its Original Complaint under unexplained and highly suspicious circumstances as
discussed above. Secondly, Respondent
offered a disingenuous explanation for its interest in registering the Domain
Name. No reasonable factfinder could
credit Respondent’s claim that it adopted the Domain Name in order to provide
information on American forks and kitchen utensils. Finally, Complainant contends that it was contacted by Respondent
on May 23, 2006—the same day that Respondent admits to receiving notice of this
matter. It is plausible that Respondent
would have contacted Complainant on that date to squeeze some money out of the
deal before losing any prospect of profiting from the Domain Name by forfeiting
it in this proceeding. Indeed, because
it is a common occurrence for registrants to contact complainants with an offer
to sell the disputed domain name after receiving notice of the complaint,
numerous panels have discussed the relevance of these interactions to the
resolution of domain name disputes. See, e.g., CBS Broadcasting, Inc. v. Saidi, D2000-0243 (WIPO June 2, 2000)
(permitting panel to consider evidence of a post-notice offer to sell); see
also Magnum Piering, Inc. v. The
Mudjackers, D2000-1525 (WIPO Jan. 29, 2001) (same). Considering these factors, Complainant’s
statement that it was contacted by Respondent with an offer to sell the Domain
Name has more credibility than Respondent’s assertion to the contrary. Accordingly, the Panel finds that Respondent
acted in bad faith when it offered to sell the Domain Name to Complainant on
May 23, 2006.
Additionally, Respondent’s previous use of
the Domain Name to attract consumers looking for Complainant’s banking services
to a commercial web directory featuring links to content unrelated to
Complainant is evidence of bad faith because Respondent presumably commercially
benefited by receiving click-through fees for diverting Internet users to third
party websites. Registering and using a
domain name to attract Internet users seeking Complainant’s goods or services
for commercial gain is evidence of bad faith.
See Associated Newspapers Ltd. v.
Domain Manager, FA201976 (Nat. Arb. Forum Nov. 19, 2003) (“Respondent’s
prior use of the <mailonsunday.com> domain name is evidence of bad faith
pursuant to Policy ¶ 4(b)(iv) because the domain name provided links to
Complainant’s competitors and Respondent presumably commercially benefited from
the misleading domain name by receiving ‘click-through-fees.’”); see also State Fair of Texas v. Granbury.com, FA 95288 (Nat. Arb. Forum
Sept. 12, 2000) (finding bad faith where the respondent registered the domain
name <bigtex.net> to infringe
on the complainant’s goodwill and attract Internet users to the respondent’s
website). Respondent admits that the
Domain Name is confusingly similar to Complainant’s mark, making it likely that
consumers visited Respondent’s website looking for Complainant’s banking and
financial services. Finding no evidence
to the contrary in the record, the Panel accepts Complainant’s allegation that
Respondent commercially benefited by receiving click-through fees. Respondent’s denial of responsibility for
acts prior to May 18, 2006 has been discussed above and rejected by the
Panel. Accordingly, the Panel finds that
Respondent acted in bad faith through its previous use of the Domain Name to divert
Complainant’s customers and potential customers for commercial gain.
Finally, the Panel concludes that Respondent
registered and is using the Domain Name in bad faith under the totality of the
circumstances test. In addition to the
factors provided in Policy ¶ 4(b), the Panel may find bad faith registration
and use based on the totality of the circumstances. See Do The Hustle, LLC v.
Tropic Web, D2000-06243 (WIPO Aug. 21, 2000) (“[T]he examples [of bad
faith] in Paragraph 4(b) are intended to be illustrative, rather than
exclusive.”); see also CBS Broadcasting,
Inc. v. LA-Twilight-Zone, D2000-0397 (WIPO June 19, 2000) (“[T]he Policy
expressly recognizes that other circumstances can be evidence that a domain
name was registered and is being used in bad faith”). The circumstances surrounding Respondent’s registration of the
Domain Name on May 18, 2006 provide an additional basis for the Panel to find
bad faith registration and use. First,
the WHOIS information was privacy protected prior to Respondent’s recent
registration of the Domain Name. This
act of concealment alone can provide evidence of bad faith registration and
use. See Dr. Ing. H.C. F. Porsche AG v. Domains by Proxy, Inc.,
D2003-0230 (WIPO May 16, 2003); see also T-Mobile USA, Inc. v. Utahhealth, FA 697819 (Nat. Arb. Forum June
7, 2006). Furthermore, Respondent
registered the Domain Name during the time between when the Original and
Amended Complaints were filed. Indeed,
Respondent registered the Domain Name two weeks after the Original Complaint
was filed and just one day before the National Arbitration Forum contacted the
Registrar to request that a lock be placed on the Domain Name pursuant to
Policy ¶ 8. Thus, the timing of
Respondent’s registration of the Domain Name was highly unusual to say the
least. Additionally, Respondent
provides no explanation as to who the Previous Registrant was or how it
acquired the Domain Name after the Original Complaint had been filed. Thus, in light of these suspicious
circumstances which suggest that Respondent registered the mark either to
conceal its relationship or commonality of interest with the Previous
Registrant or to attempt to shield the Previous Registrant from liability for
its activities prior to May 18, 2006, the Panel finds that the totality of the
circumstances demonstrate registration and use in bad faith.
Because the Panel finds sufficient evidence
of bad faith as discussed above, it need not address the close question as to
whether Respondent had actual knowledge of Complainant’s mark when registering
the Domain Name. Moreover, because the
above acts suffice to establish bad faith, the Panel need not reach the
question of whether Respondent’s non-use of the Domain Name since at least as early
as May 1, 2006 provides sufficient evidence of bad faith registration and use
under Policy ¶ 4(a)(iii) on grounds of passive holding. Cf. Clerical
Med. Inv. Group Ltd. v. Clericalmedical.com, D2000-1228 (WIPO Nov. 28,
2000) (finding that merely holding an infringing domain name without active use
can constitute use in bad faith); cf. also Caravan Club v. Mrgsale, FA 95314 (Nat. Arb. Forum Aug. 30, 2000)
(finding that passive holding of a domain name permits an inference of
registration and use in bad faith).
In sum, Complainant has demonstrated bad
faith registration and use by Respondent through Respondent’s offer to sell the
Domain Name on May 23, 2006, its use of the Domain Name to divert Internet
users to third party websites for commercial gain, and the totality of the
circumstances surrounding Respondent’s registration of the Domain Name.
DECISION
Having established all three elements required under the ICANN Policy,
the Panel concludes that relief shall be GRANTED.
Accordingly, it is Ordered that the <bankofamericanfork.com>
domain name be TRANSFERRED from Respondent to Complainant.
Michael Albert, Panelist
Dated: June 11, 2006
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